Facebook, not Fakebook

Facebook, not Fakebook

This morning, began as a new morning. I woke up to 7 missed calls and almost as many text messages–in other words, I had to do some phone changes. Added people to my favorites list so their calls will come through.

However, when I opened up my email, the unique morning continued. I woke up to some 20 something emails. At first, I just rolled my eyes thinking, Yay! More junk emails. But as I started reading through them, I got excited seeing that a bunch of them were emails saying that our stuff was on the way and my family’s morning email. The next few emails were email alerts from WordPress, letting me know that some of the blogs I follow had written new posts. Now, I am terrible and usually, I just delete them and log onto WordPress and read them there, ifI feel like it. Most of the time though, I skip over them. Horrible! I know.

This morning was different though–I came across a capturing title when it was in my email, from one of my favorite bloggers. The Facebook Mentality. Now, something with that title–Facebook. Mentality. Again, one of my favorite bloggers, I knew it had to be good. So, I quickly pulled it up.

As I read through it, I could feel myself getting that that‘s so true! look all over my face. Everything about it, was so dead on!

Facebook–the Craigslist of “my life is so perfect”. It’s just ad after ad of “look at me, look at me”. I do it too–don’t get me wrong. But, it’s more to show my family what’s going on. Although, the shelves and entertainment center I put together yesterday, those were more “Look at me, I am a badass.” posts.

Truth is… Yesterday, while I was attempting to put them all together, it took me a total of 3-5 hours to put them together. The drill kept dying, Z woke up while I was trying to put them together, kiddos kept trying to climb on them–it wasn’t as easy or as perfect as it looked on Facebook.

I struggled and wanted to lock the kiddos out and blast music until I got it done. But, they have always been my main priority and they always will be.

Some days, I get grumble and I want to be an immature kid and call names, scream, and I get so frustrated, I feel like I could spank some bums for hours. But, I take deep breathes, put myself or them in timeouts so I can calm down, and I try again as the day goes on.

Usually the kid that pushed buttons gets moved to the other room for a few minutes and I look at little Z and the other kiddos and get some smiles. I calm down and I move on.

Other days aren’t so graceful, I pick L up and carry him to his room, where I put him on the floor as he sits there screaming at the top of his lungs, with an annoying fake cry. I close the door and give a wall a little slap–really should invest in a punching bag. I would never hit my kids. So, before you go all crazy and call CPS, I have never hit them and I never will. I am more a self-mutilator. I have to get the anger inside, outside of myself. I have to make my body feel it outside. But, yes–some days I loss it. I don’t always slap a wall. Some days, I hide my hand in my pocket or under a blanket and give the world the middle finger. Yeah, real mature, I know. But, there it is–I bloody loss it some days.

Here’s the other truth–some days, I miss the days when I worked, just because they were easier to me–but, only on some levels. I didn’t deal with the smelly messes, not as many rotten attitudes, or challenging nap-times. I went to work, I came home, fed little man, watched TV, bathed him, put him to bed, did some laundry, and went to bed.

Don’t get me wrong, being a working parent–especially when I was single, it was hard. I did horrible things. I drank almost every weekend, if not every couple of nights. A couple times, I tried pot. Yeah, I did. Not proud of it. And I smoked cigarettes like a chimney.

But, I struggle for the next 3 years and I’ve kicked most of that. I had one drink, ONE while our roomies were out of town. Kiddos were asleep, Mr. was home, and Z didn’t wake up until it was out of my system.

Now, I know working is hard–especially when you have shopping, laundry, cleaning, etc. to do too and I had a roomie to help with all of that then, God bless her little heart. And with little L too.

Today, I stay at home with three kiddos, usually four Mon-Fri. The older two are up around 6 AM, sometimes Z is up then too. Some days I hear them get up and others I don’t. I should set an alarm but, I hate alarms. So, this morning, the older two were awake and I didn’t hear them. L opened the door for the lady I babysit for, which was good, because I didn’t hear her or the missed calls. But, it gave me a good scare this morning because I think, what if that was someone else?!

There are days that this stay at home alldaybusiness gets to be a lot. Some days, I think it gets to be too much. But, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Sure, I get grumpy when I don’t get help on somethings when I would like it. I don’t always want to do what I need to. Dishes pile up. I forget about the laundry and it begins to smell like mildew. There are potty accidents–like the Lego board getting peed on yesterday.

Yeah, shiz happens! There’s is no way my life is perfect. I am not the perfect parent. I am not the perfect parents. We are not billionaires. That’s just the way it is. We are real people. We are just as real as you are.

My house is messy. Some days, the TV is on all day. Some days, my kids hit each other and someone gets hurt. I am human and I will not pretend to be perfect. So, there it is.

I don’t have the whole fake it until you make it attitude when it comes to parenting. Yes, I make mistakes. No, I will never get it perfect or just right. I will do somethingright and then I will probably do five thingswrong. But, I will make sure that my kids know they are loved. That we did the best we could. I will make sure they are prepared for life. I’ll do what I can to make sure they have everything they need. Notice, I said need and not want.

I will teach our kids to share, play nice, make friends, how to do laundry, cook, clean up after themselves, how to take care of themselves, what it means to find someone who truly loves you no matter what, and anything else they need to know. Mostly, I will show them what it means to admit that you have made a mistake and own up to it, if you have.

I could go on and on but, my kiddos need my attention and I am hoping by now you have gotten the message that I want to share.